The Tribe Theory by Seth Godin

I was recently viewing a video by Seth Godin http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/seth_godin_on_the_tribes_we_lead.html wherein he argues that the Internet has ended mass marketing and revived a human social unit from the distant past: tribes.
I could not agree more.

As an SEO specialist, I lay a lot of emphasis on Online marketing and PR. I feel in the near future, SEO techniques would be of no use at all without Online marketing and PR working for you simultaneously full time. While link formation, article posting etc is a part of off page SEO, it still does not build a brand for you on the web!
What does a twitter or facebook or blog give you?

Not an opportunity to just connect....nope!

But an immense opportunity to connect with the RIGHTand RELEVANT people!! And it's so easy. Isn't that amazing? Imagine how powerful it is? I have an ERP system which I want the world to know. I log on to twitter. Create an account and add all the ERP, CRM related audience or manufacturing units - my prospective clients! I add them, they follow me. I send them updates and information that would be extremely relevant to them. In some time I would have a TOM recall when they are looking for a vendor!

Bam!!! I am part of a successful tribe! Isn't that just amazing? Isn't that an opportunity waiting to be explored.

You become a part of a tribe and there are others who would carry your idea and brand name forward. You connect and connect and connect.
Founded on shared ideas and values, tribes DO give ordinary people the power to lead and make big change! MAKE IT!

Where's YOUR edge in SEO?

My previous blog entries have pointed out to the fact that if traditional SEO techniques are used alone, they would not be of much use. SEO needs to be supplemented by much more.

While working for a client on a website for a generic product and by generic I mean there would be tones and tones of websites for the same product, I realized that the traditional methods were quite weak! Just by putting in keywords, changing the text and HTML code etc did not quite give the desired results.

Primarily because there were other websites that have been there for a while and are already on top and already have all these techniques incorporated! Tough … really tough…

All the competition websites I checked had the same keywords (maybe because all of them use the same tools at the end of the day).

So where is YOUR edge??

While working with this client I realized I need to go much beyond. Much beyond just keywords, text, HTML code and links.

The answer is ONLINE PR. Voila!!! There’s my edge.

Online PR on the website would give you some initial boost and if you have been successful in targeting the right people and provided them with a relevant and capturing website.

Online PR. Free of cost, very effective and reaches the right audience… While SEO goes on parellely, you work on your PR, make people aware of the company and its products. Use twitter, facebook, blogs etc to create awareness. Just be careful to select the right forums and the right audience!

This boost should be good enough to get you on the first page of any search engine!

Which means those not aware of you would also come and visit you.

From hereon, PR and Marketing reduce and Analytics catches on!

That’s what I did. I first created awareness of the product and its uses on a daily basis. Once that was done, marketing the company and its website was the next step.

Result….lots of people visited the website to explore the different products available and some of them placed orders too! It did not take the website more than 4 months to be in the top 3!

Once that was done, it was just a matter of maintaining that position. WEB ANALYTICS...

SEO is not dead and would not die but is now weak to move on its own. It needs the support of Online PR and Web Analytics to help you get YOUR edge!